A group of companies facing racial discrimination lawsuits for allegedly passing over black workers in favor of Hispanic workers when hiring temporary workers, failed in their attempt to have the complaints dismissed.

A federal appeals court in Chicago has slapped a construction company with sanctions, including ordering it to pay the legal bills for one of its former workers, for sending to the court a “patently frivolous” appeal of a lower court’s order in favor of three men who claimed the company had wrongly attempted to deny them pay and had wrongly classified at least one of them as an independent contractor.